Well, I don't know what a tabletop RPG is, I'm afraid (and I'm pretty sure it would be very difficult for most people at this site to agree on a single definition that wouldn't be grounded exclusively in the common fan and product base). I can discuss games I know and play, and you refer to some.

Either way, consider Directly, Covertly and with Violence. Those often apply to the details of physical actions, if not to physical space directly. I don't think there's a different fundamental mechanism behind them than behind with Love.

If you look at the second post I made in reply to you, you'll notice that I'm granting that they all these things are, ultimately modifiers decided by someone.

I get the feeling you're spoiling for an argument with me - but we're agreeing!

My guess is that how the modifiers are decided is too arbitrary for some (you and Calan, I'm guessing), while for others (me, for example) feeling my way through the judgments involved socially is part of the fun of the game.

I truly believe that this is what is at stake here. For some folks the fact that there's no hard and fast mechanistic determination of modifiers means it's just crazy-land. For others, the use of creative decisions based on aesthetic judgment (how I play) not based on "how things would really be" is why I play.

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"Can't we for once just do what we're supposed to do -- and then stop? Lemonhead, The Shield

Essentially, yes, I think the core of the issue is how those things are processed.

I'm still not sure whether they always have to be decided by someone. SMB aside, in D&D we don't decide how far from each other combatants stand. It's on the battle grid, we measure it, not decide. Even when we fail to measure this accurately, we still don't decide. At most, we could decide that despite our measurements, there is no range penalty involved, for reasons. When the rule says "-2 to hit when the opponent is more than 30 feet away", that's a rough equivalent of deciding to smash the pad with a hammer in SMB, I'd say, or tossing the cartridge out the window.

We're walking down the road, and we see a car headoing towards a junction. I say to you, "I bet you ten bucks that car will turn left". We watch, the car turns right.

You can now demand ten bucks from me. Nothing "real" happened. All just gums flapping, all just words. And yet the debt is real, the ability to demand it is real, because we have memories, and comprehension, and we both know the bet was offered and accepted.

Once upon a time you said "you can get a +2 bonus for having a height advantage". You also accepted it when I said "I back up the stairs". I can now claim that +2 bonus on the basis of prior agreement, just like the bet. Those rules were offered and accepted. The prevoius statements of positioning were offered and accepted. That is the agreement between us, and I'm entitled to invoke it.

The IS is not "real", but the statements people make and the things they agree to are.

Right. Absolutely. I was thinking specifically of 4e on this point this morning, since it plays to the pleasure of this kind of play so strongly.

That said, there are other kinds of pleasures. For some people, saying or hearing why or how an action is "For Love" is the pleasure. It isn't a problem to be dodged. It is the point of play. It is, as they say, a feature -- not a bug.

But I can absolutely see how it might be a bug for many people!

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"Can't we for once just do what we're supposed to do -- and then stop? Lemonhead, The Shield

....yeah, I don't think there's really a question that in the end, everything is based on decisions made by people. To make the leap that the Imaginative Space exists, for real, somewhere... wooo, that's quite a thing.

Looking at it this way, one could say that the SIS is a history and framework of previously made, accepted, and binding decisions upon which newer decisions will be based and accepted. Especially when you split up the authority of who can offer up a decision or make it (Bob makes decisions for these characters, Angela for my archnemesis, and Wilbur for all rats everywhere) there has to be a context for those decisions, some way to make those decisions work together cohesively.

In this way, we can return to the image of the cleric, the bar, and the table. If the SIS hasn't said anything about the existence of or the nature of the table, then now is when someone(s) (whoever has the authority) can decide about that nature, and whether it is enough to get the +2 height benefit. When someone suitably empowered says "no, that table doesn't give height advantage" what is really being said is that the relevant information about that has already been established.

...erm, but yes. SIS is not real. At least, not in practical terms. I reserve the right to indulge in some overly elaborate metaphysical pondering that no one else cares about.

The only definition of SIS that makes any sense to me is the fact that these people are speaking to one another and responding to one another's input as a basis for what they say next, and the topic happens to be fictional, or rather, fictional material in the making.

That's all there is to it. When someone says, "According to the SIS," or "Because of the SIS," or anything like that, all they mean is that the next person to speak is considering what has already been established to be valid creative material to work with.

Are you writing to other people saying something like "Of course it's not real...but the +2 is determined by the details of the characters immediate circumstances"?

To me, there isn't much more you could do to say they aren't assertions and it's real than what's in the quoted section. If someone did think it all real, what would they say about it? Well, they'd likely say something like "your tactical advantage depends upon details of your character's immediate circumstances." because they genuinely think the +2 is determined by some physically measurable, real, objects.

You sound exactly like if someone did think it all real, yet here we are, you saying no ones said it's real. Where are we on this?

Hi Filip,

This is perhaps a slightly different topic. But although there are a few things I'd examine with you thought experiment, I'll cut to this - machine code does not compute the words 'height advantage'. Go type that into a programming language compiler. It'll either spit out an error or ignore it entirely. Because it is not concrete - it has not been put into concrete numbers. Your idea that you can just be 'hardware' for 'height advantage' is incorrect - because even real hardware cannot be hardware for the words 'height advantage'. If I were to program it, it'd go something like "On collision, if x >= other.x-z bonustohit = 2;'. With Z as the ammount of pixels it has to be higher than the other object. How many pixels? Hardware cannot and does not decide this. Your blurring human artistic choices and pure procedural following into one (perhaps harmful) thing.

Hi Christian,

This is a bit of a different topic, but probably a productive and more fun one. Now if I get you right your saying something like "spend a malus point out of your limited pool, then narrate some fiction to support it if you want". I agree, it's valid - but I think there's even more potential to it...

Okay, think of this, with the very same mechanic - suppose weve all been talking shit. And I have some malus points left over and to me, it sounds like the dudes target is fifty feet out. And let's say my own artistic vision of this fiction were pumping out involves that just having to mean -2 to hit...well, I've got the currency. Bang, your 'too far out, dude! -2 to hit!'. Really, in real life, I'm just spending the malus point. But I'm basing it on fiction - perhaps next time the guy thinks 'hang on, the shit were talking sounds like I'm around 50 feet out and Callan will bust out his malus point (I know he's hording some, the bastard!), so I'll say some stuff that makes it sound like I'm rushing in, see if that works". You try it, and to my artistic vision it sounds like your forty feet "Ohh, close to inaccuracy! Lucky you" so I spend no malus point. Maybe it means the difference between hit and miss. Maybe it changes the whole outcome of the game.

Oh, and let me stress that just because I spent a point like that, no one else has to spend a malus point if spoken descriptions seem to be 50 feet or whatever the hell. Everyone spends points when they decide. However, what you can get is people start to adopt or fall in love with other peoples artistic vision - music bands get this, I bet. Other people might start doing it. OR maybe no one cares about it and...I think, eh, it's not important, I'll let go of it. We gently merge into each others artistic visions, which is really wonderful...as opposed to the often current 'Everyone has same vision or the games fucked cause we don't know what to do next otherwise! And that's a great feature, cause were all forced to envision the same! It's great! Exterminate! Exterminate!'

Okay, bit OTT with the darlek reference, but it seems horrible and artistically damaging to me.

Getting back to the good stuff, currencies of play can be affected - not by an SIS, but by peoples artistic visions. Play can be informed to an extent by peoples fictional visions. But I must also stress, to avoid bad, bad shit, this sort of play doesn't HAVE to be informed by fiction. For this sort of play, play aught to be able to go completely boardgamey without anyone going fucking fruitloops over that. Because artistic visions come when they come, they don't come because the bossy bastard on the other side of the table is telling you RPG's are about fiction and he's not having fun so stop 'roll'playing and get creative now. Boardgamey has to be acceptable otherwise it gets into a species of typhoid mary, not of character depiction, but of world invention and depiction.

Yak, yak, yak. Anyway, I think your one mechanic can be used in two very different ways. But it probably doesn't even matter me telling you - you'd probably find people use it that way to some extent in your playtests. And sometimes they'll put a point in because they want to and then people invent fiction, if they want to, to cover why it's there. Good luck with it! Also I really agree on economies - I would actually say the very thing that differentiates your game from others on the market (paid or free) is the nuances of economy in the game. And alot of the traditional RPG's have no real economy at all - that's why they all seem alike after awhile.

And I don't know if Ron is reading this, but if he's reminded of before and after traits - look, see! There doesn't have to be this weird seperation of mechanics - it all can stem from the one mechanic. Indeed I don't know how you can roleplay (without getting a headache) without treating all roleplay mechanics as both things at once!?

and so it is now an inarguable part of the fiction until circumstances change.

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Your agreed-upon framework for the game determined the existence of the table and its benefits. The only "set in stone" portion of this whole thing is the rule in the D&D book that states height advantage => +2. It's then up to the players to determine that existence and who has the credibility to firmly establish that (the GM, narrator, whatever).

And here we are at 'existance', when I'm assured no one at the forge is saying this exists. No, actually, people saying these 'things' exist is happening - here, for example.

I mean, in the last line of your example, if the GM said 'Nah, no +2. Just roll' am I right that you'd argue NOT based on the idea he promised you +2, but instead you'd argue based on the idea the table exists, right? That it had been 'established'?

It's like me saying I'll pay you for some bread you have, but only if A: You hand me the bread and B: lord Odin gives the nod. You ask if lord Odin is nodding. I say yes.

So you hand me the bread. I give you no money. Then you start arguing lord Odin was nodding. No, he stopped nodding I say. You get angry because I'm cheating or suchlike.

How do you determine cheating on such a matter, when there is no evidence? When it's just something locked away inside someones head?

I mean, in every other boardgame or even sport, there is some physical object you can physically measure to determine a result of cheating or not.

Do you really feel secure enough to call anyone a cheat on the existance of the established table/bonus given? It's a hard question.

Hi Christopher,

Well, the problem issue can be, atleast textually, made absolutely moot in a particular RPG text. You simply have the text refer to what's actually physically present for determinations. Whether your examples don't have anything like height advantage, I don't know. Are you trying to say it's a non issue? Perhaps it is - as I said, I hope it is. But you've sort of fixed soley onto height advantage - I did describe it's kin, like skill use or even buying items. Are you checking for anything else apart from height advantage? I seem to remember some sort of armour element mentioned in a post about sorcerer once. Do you get +2 armour for pot belly stove armour? How is it phrased?

And even then, well, I've always filtered the 'height advantage' rules to something sensible, so even if they are insensibly written, the author might be so used to translating them by habbit (like I am) that he doesn't think to write what he is actually doing. That may be the case with Vincent above as well. Indeed I think it's fairly widely recognised that many designers don't manage to write down what they are actually doing at the table. I think Ron may have noted that once, even. This could be as simple as that...though there's an issue about that I'd raise, if it seems to be the case.

Hi Caldis,

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Take your example of the bonus for height advantage, it is ultimately decided on by the gm but how does he decide to give it out? If he's not basing it on what's happening in the SIS then what does he decide it on, who he likes best? What color shirt someone is wearing? It's entirely arbitrary. It's only if we agree in our shared imagination that this character was here and that character was there and that gives this character an advantage do we have anything to base the decision on.

Well, again a reference to 'what's happening' when there's nothing existant for something to be happening with.

I'm not sure if even I am being on topic here, but do you think books, like action novels are a series of arbitrary events, because the author has no agreement with you? Because essentially that's absolutely true with any book about 'characters doing stuff' - it is all arbitrary and the author has no agreement with you, I'll totally grant.

Hi Gareth,

Your confusing the issue one step early. Your car and it's position is a physically mesurable object. Switch it to this 'I'll give you ten bucks if your gods dick is longer than my gods dick'.

Show me physical evidence of whether you get ten bucks, without just flapping your gums.

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Once upon a time you said "you can get a +2 bonus for having a height advantage". You also accepted it when I said "I back up the stairs". I can now claim that +2 bonus on the basis of prior agreement, just like the bet.

What is the rule on who decides whether you get +2? Is it you? If not, your breaking the rules."But it's obvious!"If it's obvious, physically measure it. Now is it like measuring the cars direction or is it like measuring the dicks of gods?

You can't call someone on cheating when it comes to something you can't physically measure - not unless you want to start being a witch hunter.

Hi Timo,

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In this way, we can return to the image of the cleric, the bar, and the table. If the SIS hasn't said anything about the existence of or the nature of the table, then now is when someone(s) (whoever has the authority) can decide about that nature, and whether it is enough to get the +2 height benefit. When someone suitably empowered says "no, that table doesn't give height advantage" what is really being said is that the relevant information about that has already been established.

I don't understand - when someone suitably empowered says it doesn't give it, then somehow retroactively the relevant information had already been established? All I can say is no? That'd be someone telling other people what they agreed to, in the past?

Hi again Roger,

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I think what would help me most, Callan, is a specific example from an Actual Play post of someone labouring under this delusion. At the moment it feels a bit like we're gathering around to complain about the hypothetical behaviours of hypothetical people, which seems a bit counter-productive.

Well, this started with me asking if anyone does this here, not me trying to prove it. I'd rather hope I'm wrong, but what qualifies to me as circumstantial evidence has built up. There are several 'using words that apply to real things' references in just this thread so far. So I'm asking.

And I can't exactly ask people for their delusional AP accounts, cause either they aren't delusional or they don't recognise their own delusion (if they could, it wouldn't be delusional!)

So I ask for AP accounts from all you people - especially when someone at the table was really, really certain X should happen. Especially if there was no rule behind that. Go on, dare you to potentially fall on your swords!

Hi Ron,

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The only definition of SIS that makes any sense to me is the fact that these people are speaking to one another and responding to one another's input as a basis for what they say next, and the topic happens to be fictional, or rather, fictional material in the making.

What I'm questioning, basically, is whether their input is being treated as so much a basis for what is said next that taking certain mechanical options is considered by some participants as actualy wrong and or cheating.

I can't tell if person B takes things said as a fun reference person A might use if they want to (player B leaves that up to A entirely), or if person B takes things said as stone cold binding agreements that he understands the minute details of completely (ie he somehow knows the length of the gods dick, even though someone else invented the god). I don't know from your example whether they are the former or the latter and they just haven't run across something person B is really bloody certain of yet.

Your definition covers both the former and the latter so far. Mixing the two would obscure what I want to discuss. I'd like to get to the point where either A goes "Hey, it's up to the GM whether I get the +2, it sounded like it would to me, but we all imagine in our own ways and clearly aren't always going to match up. And I decided he could call that when I started play!" or A goes "I'm ON the table! It's obvious I get the +2! What are you doing?? *insert some sort of body language inferring cheating here*". Any AP along those lines would rock! Well, in context to this thread, they would rock!

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When someone says, "According to the SIS," or "Because of the SIS," or anything like that

Both the former and the latter can say these same words. What they mean is very different.

... without making an error. But even this is beside the point. When the debt is called in, there is at that time, nothing to measure. All there is is the memory of prior event. And what we have in the IS is the memory of previous definitive statements. Exactly the same principle applies.

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What is the rule on who decides whether you get +2? Is it you? If not, your breaking the rules.

Once again, no I'm not. I'm entitled to invoke a rule, even if it's not technically within my right to decide. Players in sports can appeal to the referee; the referee's decision may be the one that is final, but that doesn't prevent the players putting their case and even suggesting what the right decision would be.

We agree to treat the IS as if it were real and we can draw conclusions from it as if it were real too.

Callan : yes the economics around bonus / malus leads to interesting play exeriences. What I like is the "no fudge" and the "story pushing" effects. To precise things a bit, if you're interested, in my game the GM has Threat tokens he spends to give malus, and the players "use" Traits and spends Resolution points. The important thing is that the use of Traits is part of the economy too.To use your example of the table :GM : ok, the goblin leaps toward you, this is the conflict, what's your objective ?Player : I want to get the chest and leave.GM : the goblin draws a black dagger glowing with red light! (I spend 1 threat token, that's a 1 die malus for you) (the GM could have said "He calls his friends", or "He jumps on the table and attacks from above" or whatever, this is just color)Player : I draw my sword (I use my Fighter trait) I jump on the table (I use my "Raised in a tavern" Trait) and I spend 1 Resolution point.etc etc...The trick is : use whatever you want, but tell the story, and what you use is never free. You can't use again a used trait before you "rest", and rest is, of course, "not free" (rest is linked to trait availability and to the rythm of the session).

and so it is now an inarguable part of the fiction until circumstances change.

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Your agreed-upon framework for the game determined the existence of the table and its benefits. The only "set in stone" portion of this whole thing is the rule in the D&D book that states height advantage => +2. It's then up to the players to determine that existence and who has the credibility to firmly establish that (the GM, narrator, whatever).

And here we are at 'existance', when I'm assured no one at the forge is saying this exists. No, actually, people saying these 'things' exist is happening - here, for example.

I mean, in the last line of your example, if the GM said 'Nah, no +2. Just roll' am I right that you'd argue NOT based on the idea he promised you +2, but instead you'd argue based on the idea the table exists, right? That it had been 'established'?

It's like me saying I'll pay you for some bread you have, but only if A: You hand me the bread and B: lord Odin gives the nod. You ask if lord Odin is nodding. I say yes.

So you hand me the bread. I give you no money. Then you start arguing lord Odin was nodding. No, he stopped nodding I say. You get angry because I'm cheating or suchlike.

How do you determine cheating on such a matter, when there is no evidence? When it's just something locked away inside someones head?

I mean, in every other boardgame or even sport, there is some physical object you can physically measure to determine a result of cheating or not.

Do you really feel secure enough to call anyone a cheat on the existance of the established table/bonus given? It's a hard question.

I see where you make that point, Callan. I confess I have played with capricious GMs like that who manage to change the rules or behavior of abilities or the environment on a whim, and the lack of consistency does become aggravating. The question, I dare say, then becomes one not of the hypothetical existence of the table or the height advantage, but the coherence of the SIS.

We're using, incidentally, two different senses of the word "exists". Physically, tangibly, the table is unreal, of course. A figment of our imagination. This, I believe, is the hangup a lot of us are having, this hypothetical argument (that perhaps no one has made!) that the table and cleric are real in the physical sense. On the contrary, I'm trying to use the term "exists" to refer to the manifestation of the concept that the table is present in the scene. Since when role-playing, we, being human, expect consistency and some reliance on the rules of the real world, we expect that if the person(s) with credibility has established that there is a table in the scene, it provides height advantage, and height advantage adds 2 to your attack roll, that when I stand on that table, it ought to provide me that +2! If I did stand on the table, and the GM then declared, "nope, that table no longer provides +2," or to speak closer to your point, "you don't get +2 because I said so," you are, I confess, absolutely right that I'd be a little cheesed off. I don't believe that weakens my argument; indeed, we may well agree that the table becomes something we can look up once it is established in the SIS. I believe you have my point exactly right; that said, I fail to see where we disagree. Let me know what I'm saying is jarring to you and we can debate it further.

The word "cheating" or "cheat" is a very hard line; D&D is a tough example in this instance because I believe it has very strong gamist elements, so at the extreme of that paradigm you might encounter players who declare behavior like that "cheating" on the part of the DM. I'm hesitant to use "cheating" so much as "inconsistent". Which, to you, and reasonably so, might be the same thing. The bit about witch-hunting wrt. "cheating" and rule-breaking is valid; this is why you don't see D&D played professionally. Honestly, if the GM is capricious enough to randomly declare a table as granting advantage or not, with no explanation in the context of the SIS, I might speak to him privately, or go find another game. Since in most RPGs the GM has credibility, he more or less has that say; that doesn't mean I have to like it. I can't, and wouldn't, call him a cheat, but I can "vote with my wallet" (or in this case, more accurately, "vote with my time", but that's not quite as punchy). But it's not the kind of thing over which I'd lunge across the table and start throwing punches.

I have yet to find anyone that professes some kind of "official Forge position" on the existence or non-existence of this table and +2, and the nature of that existence from a tangible or philosophical standpoint. This is so much a philosophical question at this point that I'm uncertain we are going to arrive at some kind of satisfactory agreement.

This is perhaps a slightly different topic. But although there are a few things I'd examine with you thought experiment, I'll cut to this - machine code does not compute the words 'height advantage'. Go type that into a programming language compiler. It'll either spit out an error or ignore it entirely. Because it is not concrete - it has not been put into concrete numbers. Your idea that you can just be 'hardware' for 'height advantage' is incorrect - because even real hardware cannot be hardware for the words 'height advantage'. If I were to program it, it'd go something like "On collision, if x >= other.x-z bonustohit = 2;'. With Z as the ammount of pixels it has to be higher than the other object. How many pixels?

Human-hardware does process words, though. You feed human-hardware with data and height advantage is either 0 or 1. When the computer would measure the amount of pixels or whatever, human-hardware can measure some other quality and proceed accordingly.

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Hardware cannot and does not decide this. Your blurring human artistic choices and pure procedural following into one (perhaps harmful) thing.

Heh, but how do you measure if a choice is artistic or not? It's like you could refer physically to there being an art in the choice or not.

(When it's decision, I'd say some strategic choice is necessarily involved in the context of playing a game (whatever the strategic goals of the player in a given case), while with identification, no choice other than to follow the procedure or stop playing the game as is.)

Caldis,

Quote from: Caldis

It's not quite that simple. Someone has to place the figures on the battle grid and move figures on or off of it so in the end someone is always deciding.

Say, I decide the initial distance of our characters is 15 feet (3 suares). Then, you decide how to spend your movement points, and I decide how to spend mine, and we move around the battle grid for a few turns. Then, you decide to shoot at me. The rule says it's -2 to hit when your target is more than 30 feet (6 squares) away.

We count squares on the grid and our current distance is 60 feet (12 squares). You take -2 penalty to hit.

The moment we count squares, do we decide it's 60 feet? I did decide it was 15 feet initially, then both of us did decide how to spend our movement (how to spend our movement at that point, not what the distance is at this point), then you decided to shoot at me. But is there any decision involved in establishing range penalty, or do we just identify it?

And if we actually decide it's 60 feet and not 30 or 45 or 97, would it be different if it was explicitly a miniature wargame rather than "tabletop RPG"? Or, how is it different if we imagine the grid and perform all operations in our heads rather than based on physical representation? Or, how is it different if the grid only exists as data in computer memory, and all measurement is performed by virtual tabletop software?

Christian,

This might be a bit off topic, or it might not, I'm not sure. However, in your ruleset, is it fine for me to say: USS Enterprise appears and evaporates the goblin with photon torpedos (I use my "Raised in a tavern" trait and spend 1 Resolution point)? Or, is it fine for you to say "He calls his friends" every time you spend threat tokens for the goblin, over and over again?

With both, is it fine when the person saying that is genuinely convinced they are telling good story? With both, is it fine if they are just saying it, for reasons?

What happens when other players don't think it fits the story? USS Enterprise aside, what if I object to your goblin's dagger glowing red?